Facebook Caves To Privacy Protests Over Beacon

jcatcw writes "After weeks of privacy protests over its advertising system, Facebook's CEO announced that users now can turn the system off completely. CEO Zuckerberg said 'We simply did a bad job with this release.' Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, called the announcement from Zuckerberg 'a step in the right direction.'"

Just like last time...

[vaderhelmet]

During the mini-feeds debacle, Mark ended up conceding with a comment very similar to this. (http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208562130 [facebook.com]) If they were really interested in privacy concerns, they would have learned from the first time. To me, it seems like a way to see how far they can push the line before people will complain.

Ya, they "caved".

[fahrbot-bot]

From the TFA: "On the opt-out page, it says that you will stop information from being posted to your profile," he noted. "It does not explicitly state that Facebook will stop collecting the information transmitted from third party sites."

Meaning: We'll still collect information on you and do whatever we want with it, but it won't appear on your profile. Better? Yes. Much better? No.

Boycott the Advertisers (list)

[jnadke]

Need to cut the problem at the source: the advertisers themselves. This wasn't easy to find in google, but here's a list of sites that have privacy-violating Beacon code embedded in them.

Boycott the following sites:

eBay
Fandango
College Humor
Busted Tees
iWon
Citysearch
Pronto.com
echomusic
Travelocity
Allposters.com
Blockbuster
Bluefly.com
CBS Sports
Dotspotter
ExpoTV
Gamefly
Hotwire
Joost
Kiva
Kongregate
LiveJournal
Live Nation
Mercantila
The NBA
The New York Times
Overstock.com
(RED)
Redlight
Seamless Web
Sony Online Entertainment
Sony Pictures
STA Travel
TheKnot
TripAdvisor
Travel Ticker
Typepad
viagogo
Vox
Yelp
WeddingChannel.com
Zappos

Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/releases.php?p=9166 [facebook.com] (found from a blog)

TFA is wrong

[violet16]

TFA is quoting random "user Rob Tandry." Zuckerberg's announcement on the Facebook blog [facebook.com] explicitly says they won't collect info when you turn Beacon off:

if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won't store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook.

About-face

[creativeHavoc]

This is the response I recieved when telling them I wanted to be able to turn off Beacon before I was "reported on"

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback about Facebook Beacon, it has definitely helped us make some changes to the product that we hope will provide you with a better experience on Facebook. Beacon was designed to help you share all the interesting things that you are doing outside of Facebook with your friends. Just like you have full control over your information on Facebook, you decide whether or not you want Beacon stories to be published and from which site.

Your feedback has made it clear that Beacon can be kind of confusing. To fix this, we are clarifying the way we inform you about a Beacon story before you decide whether or not you'd like to publish it on Facebook. In addition, we're working on making the sites that offer Beacon more visible to you, both on Facebook and through visual cues, so you can determine which specific sites you can publish stories from. Also, we're providing more information on how Beacon works through a new tutorial and expanded help pages.

We are trying to provide you with new meaningful ways, like Beacon, to help you connect and share information with your friends. Thanks for taking the time to express your opinions about our products. There isn't currently a way to block all sites before you've been sent any stories, but we'll keep it in mind for a future improvement. Please keep the feedback coming as we continuously work to improve your Facebook experience.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Ryann
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

That's a pretty big change from what Mark was saying in his blog post if you ask me. That being said, the big problem is, all I have turned off is Facebook's reporting of the sites I visit. I essentially hit a switch that says "Track me, but dont let me know what you are getting!" I wonder if I should turn it back on, so I can at least keep tabs on it.

Also, I wonder if I will still see what sites have reported back to facebook with my information on the settings page, even though I have turned it off.

Re:Does this violate advertisers' privacy policies

[jnadke]

As far as I understand Beacon is merely some AJAX code that resides within the affiliates webpage.

Your own computer gets this code, and communicates with Facebook directly, looking at your cookies to see if you're affiliated with Facebook. Since the transfer is local you can block it, but still these websites have the malicious AJAX code residing within their pages.

You have to block "http://www.facebook.com/beacon/*", which can be done using the FireFox BlockSite plugin, among other methods.

Be that as it may...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't say as I trust them. I don't use Facebook and I don't intend to, but I added this to my ad filters after the last story:

http*://*facebook.com/beacon/*

Unless you want to use that "feature" I don't see how it can hurt.

Blocking the Beacon

[louisadkins]

There seem to be a number of sites (ala Google) that show Beacon can (at least, right now) be blocked by adding " http://facebook.com/beacon/* [facebook.com] " to your anti-adware/blocker plugins.

Re:TFA is wrong

[gordguide]

Maybe it's just semantics, but I can't really agree with your conclusion.

" ... they won't collect info ..." does not equal " ... won't store those actions ... " in my understanding of the English language.

As I read it, what happens is first they collect the identifiable data, then they might do some real-time stuff with it, then they throw the identifiable data away, probably keeping whatever aggregate info they glean from the real-time processing.

Essentially they promise to not store it but they most certainly do admit they will continue to collect it, and they are silent on whether they do anything with it as far as compiling non-identifiable statistics with it.